We packed up the family Saturday afternoon for a family picture. Those days are always the best……HA! I run around like a mad person dressing and coordinating 8 people! 8!!! It is crazy hard but when the job is done I am always in love! I love nothing more then a picture of my family all dressed AND coordinated! The best part was the location included a family pumpkin farm and antique carnival rides. It made for the perfect bribe!
There are a couple events a year that I get overly excited to photograph. Mainly because when I revisit those photos after the fact they make me so happy. Coloring Easter eggs is a big one but runner up to that is carving pumpkins. The process itself is not my favorite but the outcome is awesome and the memories even better! So this years pumpkin carving fest – we call if a fest because we have 6 pumpkins to carve! Went off with very little problems.
As I was dodging back and forth from kid to kid cutting, scooping and drawing I chuckled to myself. Each of my kids personalities shine during these activities. They are all so very different and this year Little Sister participated….for the first time she too dug her hands deep into that pumpkin to pull out that fleshy, seedy stuff and then throw it in the bowl. She was ok with the gooey feeling of the insides of a pumpkin. Oh and she might have ate a seed or two!
Ryan, not so much. He tried every which way possible to get the seeds out in a way that did not require his hand to go into the pumpkin. His first attempt was to place a rag over the hole of the pumpkin and reach in through the rag and pull out the seeds. Didn’t work so well. Then he decided that he would turn the pumpkin over and beat on the bottom till all the seed fell out. Unfortunately neither worked out the way he would have liked so I had to step in and help him get his pumpkin clean.
Sean, My independent Kindergartener wanted no assistance at all. He was determined to cut the top of the pumpkin off himself with a butter knife. He gave it a good go for at least 45 mins and then had to resort to my rescue. Once the cap was off he cleaned and prepared his pumpkin perfectly.
Patrick with some assistance from Dad, designed and cut his pumpkin face out with no problem at all. He is a big kid now and it shows.
Colin was not really interested in the process at all. He sketched a face for me to cut out and then took off.
It is crazy how far we have come with this pumpkin carving process. It was so hard when all the kids were young and now we are purely assistants to the master carvers, well exempt for Colin and Grace who still need just a bit more help. In fact our oldest was not even there. He was off with a friend. If I could bottle this time up I would because I know it is quickly slipping away.
Most of you know my friend Steve English and I have a Campaign called “Changing the Face of Beauty”. I wrote about it a lot this summer. Well we were thrilled to have had the opportunity to be a featured segment on Channel 7 news here in Chicago.
You can view the segment at Channel 7.
This campaign has become such a beautiful display of amazing children and young adults. Our hope is that we are able to influence advertisers to continue to use individuals with disabilities in their every day advertising. We are blessed to have a group of Moms and Dads working with us to make this happen. Along with the long list of photographers donating their time to provide beautiful images of our models. If you are interested in hearing more about our campaign please check out our website at Changing the Face of Beauty.
As the holiday season is approaching I wanted to share with you a project my friend has put together. She is an amazing photographer (Giselle Evelyn Photography) and has a local modeling program for children who have that extra magical chromosome. We are so lucky at Changing the Face of Beauty to be featuring some of her models.
She has compiled her work into a coffee table book and it has captured the beauty in these amazing kids. Please take a moment and watch this amazing trailer for Down Right Perfect.
Down Right Perfect from Sullivan Films on Vimeo.
The proceeds for this book go to Down Syndrome Association of Jacksonville as well as families adopting through Reeses Rainbow. Love love love this!
You can purchase the book at Amazon.
Happy Happy Day! and Happy Happy Halloween!
